Magento 2 – Order Items Layout Not Appearing in Email Template

This is how you can find out, where the text comes from:

First: use grep to search for the layout handle sales_email_order_items in the magento codebase.

You will find some files like app/design/frontend/base/default/layout/sales.xml where the template is defined:

<!--
Email layouts section
-->
    <sales_email_order_items>
        <block type="sales/order_email_items" name="items" template="email/order/items.phtml">
            <action method="addItemRender"><type>default</type><block>sales/order_email_items_order_default</block><template>email/order/items/order/default.phtml</template></action>
            <action method="addItemRender"><type>grouped</type><block>sales/order_email_items_order_grouped</block><template>email/order/items/order/default.phtml</template></action>
            <block type="sales/order_totals" name="order_totals" template="sales/order/totals.phtml">
                <action method="setLabelProperties"><value>colspan="3" align="right" style="padding:3px 9px"</value></action>
                <action method="setValueProperties"><value>align="right" style="padding:3px 9px"</value></action>
                <block type="tax/sales_order_tax" name="tax" template="tax/order/tax.phtml">
                    <action method="setIsPlaneMode"><value>1</value></action>
                </block>
            </block>
        </block>
        <block type="core/text_list" name="additional.product.info" />
    </sales_email_order_items>

Have a look at the block in the middle <block type="sales/order_totals" name="order_totals" template="sales/order/totals.phtml">...</block>. If you open sales/order/totals.phtml you will see that this template contains the loop for the output of the totals. The totals itself come from Mage_Sales_Block_Order_Totals (check out the @see Mage_Sales_Block_Order_Totals block in the phtml-file.

The label itself is set in Mage_Sales_Block_Order_Totals. Draw your attention to the _initTotals method:

/**
     * Initialize order totals array
     *
     * @return Mage_Sales_Block_Order_Totals
     */
    protected function _initTotals()
    {
        $source = $this->getSource();

        $this->_totals = array();
        $this->_totals['subtotal'] = new Varien_Object(array(
            'code'  => 'subtotal',
            'value' => $source->getSubtotal(),
            'label' => $this->__('Subtotal')
        ));

     ...
    }

This means: The label is set in the _initTotals method of Mage_Sales_Block_Order_Totals. $this->_totals['subtotal'] = new Varien_Object(array( 'code' => 'subtotal', 'value' => $source->getSubtotal(), 'label' => $this->__('Subtotal') ));

The label is put into the template in sales/order/totals.phtml here:

     <td <?php echo $this->getLabelProperties()?>>
         <?php if ($_total->getStrong()):?>
         <strong><?php echo $this->escapeHtml($_total->getLabel());?></strong>
         <?php else:?>
         <?php echo $this->escapeHtml($_total->getLabel());?>
         <?php endif?>
     </td>

How to change the label?

If you want to change the labels in your shop globally I suggest you put it into your translation files (app/design/frontend/yourpackage/yourtheme/locale/en_US/translate.csv in your shop template OR in one of your shop base modules - if you have something like this).

If you only want to change the label in the e-mails, the easiest might be to define your own template for <block type="sales/order_invoice_totals" .... > ... </block>, for example:

<block type="sales/order_invoice_totals" name="invoice_totals" template="your/costom/template_for_totals.phtml">
          <action method="setLabelProperties"><value>colspan="3" align="right" style="padding:3px 9px"</value></action>
          <action method="setValueProperties"><value>align="right" style="padding:3px 9px"</value></action>
          <block type="tax/sales_order_tax" name="tax" template="tax/order/tax.phtml">
             <action method="setIsPlaneMode"><value>1</value></action>
          </block>
 </block>

Why creating your own template file?

The template sales/order/totals.phtml is used quite often in different layout XML-files and you this will also change the label, wherever this template is used.

The issue came down to a conflict. The {{layout handle="sales_email_order_items" order=$order}} wasn't working because the block it was trying to load - sales/order_email_items was being extended by a module that had been disabled.

I tested the sales_email_order_items handle by removing what was in it by default and adding a call to a file just containing static text, which worked. From here I realised that there must be a bug in the blocks it was trying to load and found that I needed to delete the configuration file completely rather than just disable the module of the offending module to stop the conflict.